


Gone like that sunset

by keeptheearthbelow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, First Time, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 06:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5118476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeptheearthbelow/pseuds/keeptheearthbelow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss, in all her discomfort with sex, reflects on an incident of lust and its repercussions. A missing moment set during Catching Fire and later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone like that sunset

We did, once. Just once. The night before the interviews, two nights before the second arena.

We watched the sun set over the Capitol, the stars come out, the sky fade to black over the western mountains. We took our picnic things back down to my room and let go of each other’s hands long enough to wash up before bed. We climbed in next to each other. Then couldn’t settle in, tired but not sleepy, still warm from the sun. Maybe pretending to be a little more asleep than we were as we tried to find a place to rest our hands.

Then going ahead and letting our hands move, slip inside clothes; it’s all under the bedcovers so we can maintain some silent pretense. Kissing is a practiced series of movements by now, something we don’t have to think about, and the interruptions as clothes go over our heads are too brief to allow any thinking. Bare skin slipping together in the dark, shifting weight, shy curious hands, not looking at each other, not quite sure what to do next and not willing to ask.

The only words we exchange are these: He pauses and says against my mouth, “Should we find something —?” and I say, eyes closed, “Why bother?” Moment of ingrained responsibility over, he settles onto his back and pulls me astride him. No wonder he came up with the story that I was pregnant. All I could think, later, in the seconds when I could dare to think about it at all, was what solid proof my answer was of my belief that I’d be dead within days.

We both tried to be quiet, but I don’t know what we thought would happen if somebody heard us, and it didn’t really work anyway. Afterward, panting, dripping, we slid apart but still couldn’t let go, couldn’t look at each other, just kept the covers over us and clung to each other and, finally, fell asleep.

In the morning, separated by our prep teams, we never acknowledged what we’d done. It was gone like that sunset, a passing thing that happens of its own volition.

It wasn’t quite like I’d have thought it would be, and I couldn’t really say that I enjoyed it, just that I needed it. Hard to believe, given that I always meant to go without. I think he needed it too, and it wasn’t out of love. Something outweighed the fact that we were nearly forced to do this, that if we weren’t entering another arena we would have been forced to take each other to bed. Maybe we would have been recorded, the tapes sold or broadcast. Maybe we were recorded that night, although if we were, they never used the tapes during his hijacking. And something outweighed the fact that we hated each other a little bit, even then, because how can you not hate this uncooperative person that you’re trying to die to save? We did it anyway, maybe just to have one last choice in our lives. Maybe out of some bodily animal desperation to keep living.

I was okay with it being the only time and then I’d die. He wouldn’t ever have to wonder what he’d missed. But instead it was him, gone and worse than dead, and I couldn’t tell anybody or even think about it, what I’d had and then lost. And then he was alive, and I thought, oh, maybe, maybe that didn’t have to be the only time. But then he was brought back. And I found out then: yes, it would only ever be the one time.

I was never sure whether he remembered and that was part of why he could hate me. But eventually it just sort of seemed like he didn’t remember. Or if he remembered, he thought it wasn’t real.

It was a long time before I could grasp the idea of him being in my bed again. Before I could work up the courage to talk to him about what had happened, about what we could let happen, before I could trust that any good could come of giving in to the yearning to let my hands move over him. But he wants to be here, and I want him here. And it’s real.


End file.
